For example, an ink jet printing apparatus comprises a print head and an ink cartridge for containing ink therein. In the print head, a drive signal is applied to piezoelectric elements, heating elements or the like. Ink is pressurized by energy generated by those elements, and caused to be jet out in the form of ink droplets through nozzle orifices.
A print quality is determined by a resolution of the print head, and depends largely on viscosity of ink and a spread of ink in the print medium. For this reason, study and development are made for the improvements of ink characteristic, print head driving method adaptable to the characteristics of like ink, and maintenance conditions of purging periods in purging ink for preventing the clogging of the print head, the purging of ink from the print head being capped, and the like.
A remarkable improvement of the print quality of the printing apparatus is achieved when the ink characteristic and the print head driving method are both improved in harmony with each other. Manufacturers can incorporate such technical results of the development into the products. When a situation arises where altered control data must be loaded into the printing apparatus after delivered to the market, it is necessary to return the printing apparatus to its factory and replace an old storing means with a storing means storing the altered control data. This is almost impossible when considering the cost and labor to effect such work.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a novel ink jet printing apparatus which can easily and automatically alter the print head driving method and the maintenance condition for removing the clogging of the print head in accordance with a change of the specification of ink, and an ink cartridge in use with the ink jet printing apparatus.
Ink as a chemical product is contained in the ink cartridge. Even if the ink cartridge run out of ink, there is a chance that ink is left in the ink cartridge. Therefore, ink per se as a chemical product and noncorrosiveness of high polymer material of the ink cartridge will contaminate environments. To avoid this, it is desirable to collect ink cartridges that run out have ink of, and refill the used ink cartridges with new ink and use the regenerated ones again. However, the regenerated products are somewhat degraded in reliability performance. For this reason, it is necessary to secure a satisfactory print quality, to consider an adverse affect on the print head, and to announce that the product is a regenerated one.
A second object of the present invention is to provide a novel ink jet printing apparatus which can secure a reliable print quality and satisfactory functionality of a regenerated ink cartridge, and an ink cartridge in use with the ink jet printing apparatus.